Madness seems to be a common theme in William Shakespeare's plays, however, the purpose of the madness and insanity varies for each play. As seen in Macbeth and Hamlet, madness drives characters to the point of no return, also recognized as death. These characters share suffering with the audience and tend to portray it as an inevitable punishment for their actions. Shakespeare reveals the basis of madness through experiences that bring sadness to hamlet, guilt to Macbeth, and fury to both characters, which leave the audience wondering about the true sanity of each character.
Through Shakespeare’s plays, madness becomes like death and separates characters from their true lives. The insanity links to a man and his weaknesses, only making him weaker and weaker. In Macbeth and Hamlet, it seems like a death in life to be mad in these tragedies. For when a character in these plays loses himself, it creates a detachment from the world. Just like death, the madness threatens life and reason not just for the characters themselves, but for others as well. In these plays, strong emotions fuel the insanity that pushes the characters outside of their world and into madness. Throughout the plays, suicide reveals itself as the the most easy way out of this world as seen with Ophelia when her madness takes over as she plunges to her "muddy death"(118). Her sudden self-slaughter comes as a surprise to most of the other characters until they soon realize that death inevitably arrives to everyone at some time in their lives. Furthermore, this action also illustrates the effect of how emotions such as extreme sorrow can lead to madness. Instead of the end acting as a passage and promise of peace, death and madness represent darkness where reason is lost.
Through trying to achieve something or having gone through something themselves, some characters use the madness to their advantage and only use it as a tool to mask their true thoughts and feelings. ...